The power of moral sanction is something Wall Street takes very seriously. So seriously, in fact, that over the last two decades, hostile takeovers of authentic civil society organizations, known for exercising moral sanction (i.e., Sierra Club and Pacifica Radio Network), have evolved into full-fledged displacement by corporate false fronts (i.e., Avaaz and 350).

While the membership-based Sierra Club and Pacifica Radio Network fought back and reclaimed their boards of directors, false fronts and compromised NGOs (i.e. Amnesty International USA) have become what is known as imperial civil society. Used to justify privatization, austerity, and military aggression by NATO and the US, they reflect a perversion of moral sanction.

As Maximilian Forte writes in Civil Society, NGOs, and Saving the Needy, the main purpose of the burgeoning civil society fad – that comprises the international bureaucracy of neoliberalism – is to legitimate anti-democratic politics. In order to take over basic functions and powers of the state, this bureaucracy – engaged in development, governance and aid – justifies itself by creating a “need,” thereby cornering the market on “humanity.”

With corporate and government funding, often laundered through banks and foundations, international NGOs inspire pathos by constantly producing images of despair — thus allowing them to dominate discourse from an emotional vantage point. As a market-oriented institutional apparatus, this vast bureaucracy works hand in hand with military and finance authorities, thus functioning as Trojan horses on a par with transnational organized crime.

As a fifth column of fascism, imperial civil society – funded by such entities as Rockefeller Brothers Fund, Ford Foundation, and Soros Open Society Institute – operates worldwide (in tandem with official false fronts like USAID, National Endowment for Democracy, and US Institute for Peace) to subvert sovereignty and derail democracy in favor of US hegemony.

Overthrowing and destabilizing governments, using NGOs like Avaaz as provocateurs, puts authentic non-profits and journalists at risk. Indeed, the imperial network of financiers like Soros makes NGO entrepreneurs in the pro-war champagne circuit accomplices in crimes against humanity. As frontline opportunists in the psywar waged against public consciousness, these false fronts legitimate “humanitarian warfare” and “free-market environmentalism,” employed against indigenous peoples and independent states.

With help from Ford, Rockefeller, Gates and Soros, imperial civil society is admittedly a formidable foe, but not an invulnerable one. Built on a foundation of fraud, the power of moral sanction they have hijacked can effectively be turned against them. While false fronts are able to dominate social media, they do not own our minds; they are merely social engineers operating under false pretenses that we can reject at will.

Jay Taber is an associate scholar of the Center for World Indigenous Studies, a contributing editor of Fourth World Journal, and a featured columnist at IC Magazine.

With all the caustic New World Order climate change and land use plans, and in spite of public outrage stemming from the global warming fraud, the bureaucratic juggernaut rolls on. Especially in New York State, the home of the sinister United Nations, the plotters against rational conservation, efficient energy policy and prudent economic growth, are destroying the very nature of sound environmentalism. Hard at work are the brain dead toady bureaucrats and the “true believers” in total denial meltdown mode. Turning the concept of ‘self-sufficiency’ into a dirty word – ‘sustainability’ – is the new catch phrase to distinguish vogue ignorance, in order to save the planet you need to destroy it, crowd.

Ordinary citizens need to rally and put an end to central control government. Start with the NYS Department of Environmental Conservation efforts in there, Sustainability Plan Guidance A Regional Plan. This outline adopts the objectives of imposing an Agenda 21 program as official NYS policy. “The core of the plan is the regional focus that enables a consortium of municipalities to create a shared vision and then pool their resources towards achieving that vision.”

“Of course, the county and local government officials are unaware that by signing an agreement to participate in this new regional program, that they have actually signed onto Agenda 21 and that their town, city, village or county will now appear on the ICLEIwebsite. Most local residents will remain unaware of the implications of the new comprehensive plan and Agenda 21 until after it is promulgated in their own backyards in the form of a regional draft comprehensive plan that is intended to supersede local planning boards and zoning laws.”

In order to appreciate the scope and intrusion into local communities, the destructive role of the New York State Energy Research & Development Authority, NYSERDA becomes required understanding. A recent case study assessment provides a firsthand testimonial of an attendee at a regional gathering. Please review the source links for supporting evidence.

As those who have done their homework regarding the United Nation’s ‘Agenda 21′ plan are very well-aware, “Sustainability” is a key buzzword that is part and parcel of the UN’s ‘Agenda 21′. There is no doubt that the “Sustainability” Plan currently being devised by Planning Departments across the state, who are acting “under NYSERDA’s thumb” (as one Planner phrased it at their first meeting in Batavia), IS ‘Agenda 21′ in the works (think carbon taxes, ‘green’ energy transfer-of-wealth schemes, and one-world governance).

While at the “open-house style” meeting in Batavia last evening, folks were asked to read the poster boards relevant to each part of the overall plan: Land Use, Water Use, Agriculture, Forestry, Waste Management, Economic Development, and Energy — and to then use sticky notes to post their comments on the boards for each particular segment of the plan.

Many will say they see nothing wrong with developing a good overall plan like this, and there certainly are many aspects of the extensive plan that look good at first glance. However, as they say – the devil is in the details.

The fact that NYSERDA is the bureaucracy over-seeing this process is the tell-tale warning sign, as the development of renewable energy across the state and ways to regulate carbon emissions is the overarching goal in each area of the plan. This should leave everyone very wary about the remaining $90,000,000 – that came from RGGI ratepayer dollars, that will be offered as ‘grants’ (the proverbial ‘carrots’ used to lead the sheep) to guide our communities into “compliance” with the overall underlying agenda – that of ‘Agenda 21′. Who knows where the money will come from for Governor Cuomo’s proposed $BILLION dollar “Green Bank”, and $1.5 Billion dollar Solar fund? One thing is for sure — Who needs Cap & Trade legislation when these kinds of “Sustainability Plans” are in the works!

One of the biggest warning flags I noted last evening (besides the obvious HUGE “green” energy push and carbon regulation goals) was on the chart regarding ‘Land Use’. I noted one line that said, “Home Rule” interferes with inter-municipal cooperation…” The obvious subliminal message here is that “Home Rule” is a BAD thing.

Our municipalities’ long-held, Constitutional-right to “Home Rule” is being progressively undermined in this whole process of State-led planning. We are unwittingly, slowly and methodically giving over total control to unelected bureaucrats and planners who are devising these “green”, “sustainability” plans — which are part and parcel of ‘Agenda 21′ (which many officials and bureaucrats say they still know nothing about).

The sad reality – that most of these planners are not at all educated about energy and power, became evident just as I was getting ready to leave the meeting. One of the FL Planners asked me what I had thought of the display. I told him straight out that the obvious push for “Unreliables” (what the ‘greens’ refer to as ‘renewables’) like wind is a complete waste of our tax- and rate-payer dollars. I told him that while I am certainly all for scientifically-vetted, economically-sound energy-innovation, industrial wind was the biggest scam to ever come down the pike. Not surprisingly, he did not like my response.

Sadly, he responded with the decades-old propaganda line, “Well, we have to do something. Oil is responsible for so much of our pollution.”

I responded, “I’m not talking about oil – which is used for transportation. I’m talking about unreliable wind power – which is used for electricity!”

He tried to argue that eventually we would end up going to all electric vehicles. I just laughed, and said, “Sir, I’m afraid you’ve drank the Kool-Aid! I couldn’t even make it home and back in an electric car.” Thankfully, a local guy who does get it, stepped in and said that even if electric vehicles became more prevalent, they could never be used to do the kind of heavy work required on our farms.

As our conversation proceeded, we had the attention of the entire small crowd that was in the room – which played out great, as the facts totally destroyed this planner’s entire argument.

What is transpiring in New York State regarding the push for United Nation’s recommended “Sustainability” plans by Governor Andrew Cuomo and his cohorts at NYSERDA, is described by Dr. Calvin Beisner of the Cornwall Alliance in the article, “Is your church bowing to the ‘Green Dragon’?” Dr. Beisner discusses how “Environmentalism” has become the world’s new religion. Global Warming Alarmism and the push for all things “green” is all about worshiping the earth and protecting the earth from evil men — rather than worshiping and trusting in God and being good stewards of the earth in order to better serve all mankind, as God intended it to be. Dr. Beisner is exactly right!

NYSERDA is a scalawag outfit that does harm to New York State residents. It is a government agency based upon deceit and pseudo energy research, corrupt cronyism and fake environmentalism. The article, Agenda 21 in New York State – Home Rule and Article X, provides relevant details on the way the technical process of administrative agencies erode the basic property rights of landowners and authority of local communities.The limited powers and narrow influence of elected representatives on the actual governance by bureaus is the worst of all worlds. The globalist master deceivers, game and work the system to circumvent traditional safeguards and legitimate home rule jurisdiction.

The value of insights gained from attending such meetings as the Finger Lakes “Regional ‘Sustainability’ Plan”, clearly document and expose, the true intent and consequences of Agenda 21. Sustainability really means sustain instability for the consumer, while enriching the benefactors of the Cap and Trade rip off scheme.

Sartre is the publisher, editor, and writer for Breaking All The Rules. He can be reached at: BATR
Sartre is a regular columnist for Veracity Voice

Upcoming Scientific Publication: “governments can and even should move beyond existent levels of public permission in order to shift norms, allowing public sentiment to later catch up with the regulation.”

In a peer-reviewed paper by the American Institute of Biological Sciences titled “Social Norms and Global Environmental Challenges” (available ahead of print), to be published in the march 2013 edition of the Institute’s yearly journal BioScience, a group of well-known scientists calls on government and scientists to start with the planned social engineering of “norms” and “values” in regards to environmental policies. In addition, they propose putting into effect all sorts of environmental fines and regulations in the spirit of Agenda 21 to hasten the social acceptance of increased governmental control. Also, they propose that the scientific community as a whole should align itself with government “through a concerted effort to change personal and social norms”.

The group of scientists involved in the upcoming publication include two Nobel Prize winners, economist Kenneth Arrow and political scientist Elinor Ostrom, as well as behavioral scientists, mathematicians, biologists- not to mention population scientists, the most well-known of whom are Paul Ehrlich and Gretchen C. Daily- whose professional relationship dates back to the Ecoscience days. The authors start out by stating:

“Some have argued that progress on these (global environmental) problems can be made only through a concerted effort to change personal and social norms. They contend that we must, through education and persuasion, ensure that certain behaviors become ingrained as a matter of personal ethics.” Stating that education and persuasion are insufficient to accomplish behavioral changes, they note:

“Substantial numbers of people will have to alter their existing behaviors to address this new class of global environmental problems. Alternative approaches are needed when education and persuasion alone are insufficient. Policy instruments such as penalties, regulations, and incentives may therefore be required to achieve significant behavior modification.”

Proposing that “effective policies are ones that induce both short-term changes in behavior and longer-term changes in social norms”, the collection of prominent scientists assert that “government is uniquely obligated to locate the common good and formulate its policies accordingly.”

The upcoming report however stresses that scientists are given the tools to have a hand in
“government policies intended to alter choices and behaviors” such as “active norm management, changing the conditions influencing behaviors, financial interventions, and regulatory measures.”

Each of these policy instruments potentially influences personal and social norms in different ways and through different mechanisms. Each also carries the danger of backfiring, which is often called a boomerang effect in the literature—eroding compliance and reducing the prevalence of the desired behaviors and the social norms that support those behaviors”.

“Eroding compliance”, it is called. Anticipating that an increase in regulatory interventions by government are sure to create resistance among the target population, the scientists express confidence that their recommendations “can be carried out in a way that abides by the principles of representative democracy, including transparency, fairness, and accountability.”

Despite these on-the-surface soothing words, the authors stress that government (and the scientific community) should ultimately “move beyond” public consent when it comes to top-down regulations imposed on the American people:

“Some have argued that regulations are inherently coercive and cannot or should not exceed implied levels of public permission for such regulations. An alternative viewpoint is that governments can and even should move beyond existent levels of public permission in order to shift norms, allowing public sentiment to later catch up with the regulation”.

By admitting they are willing to “move beyond existent levels of public permission” to push ahead with draconian environmental policies, these prominent scientists (among whom we find two Nobel laureates and one Paul Ehrlich) have proven their willingness to deceive the American population for their “environmental” control model. As Aaron Dykes put it while interviewing Lord Christopher Monckton,, the environmental “cause” is nothing more than “an absolute valued pretext for their absolute control model”.

The engineering of public “norms” serves not so much any environmental cause, but another one, namely that environmental policies, even draconian ones, will finally be perceived by the US population as being consistent with their own personal norms.

The way in which government may go about it shifting norms, the scientists argue, is by on the one hand “managing norms” through “such things as advertising campaigns, information blitzes, or appeals from respected figures”. The other aspect involved is the use of financial incentives and disincentives with the aim of conditioning the public to accept an increasing governmental control over personal behavior. The paper continues by saying that the best way to alter existing behaviors is through persuasive government regulations “such as penalties, regulations, and incentives” in order to “achieve significant behavior modification.”

“Fines can be an effective way to alter behavior, in part because they (like social norm management) signal the seriousness with which society treats the issue.”

By extension, the authors express hope that behaviors and values will “coevolve” alongside increased government control in the form of state regulations and “fines”:

“A carbon tax might prove effective even in the face of near-term opposition. What needs to be assessed is the possibility that behaviors and values would coevolve in such a way that a carbon tax—or other policy instrument that raises prices, such as a cap-and-trade system—ultimately comes to be seen as worthy, which would therefore allow for its long-term effectiveness”

In the context of this idea that shifting norms will “coevolve” alongside increased government regulations, the authors state:

“Each of the government interventions can influence both personal and social norms, although they do so through different mechanisms. Only social norm management directly targets norms. Choice architecture, financial instruments, and regulations can all alter social norms by causing people to first change their behaviors and then shift their beliefs to conform to those behaviors.”

In other words: the scientists propose arousing the concept of cognitive dissonance in the minds of people in order to guide the herd towards “proenvironmental” citizenship.

“When it comes to environmental issues”, the scientists write, “two different types of social norms are at play in these dynamics: social norms of conformity or cooperation and proenvironment social norms. Only the first type need be present to induce proenvironment behaviors (although proenvironment personal norms may emerge from this through, e.g., cognitive dissonance, experience, or associating the positive feeling from social approval for an act with the act itself).”

In the upcoming publication the concepts of peer-pressure and cognitive dissonance are being brought into the equation as effective norm-determining factors:

“norms of conformity and cooperation are far more universal than are proenvironment norms and are therefore far more powerful in inducing proenvironment behaviors that do not conflict with preexisting values or preferences. In other words, proenvironment values are not a necessary prerequisite to proenvironment behaviors.”

While the authors express their hope that government expands control through all kinds of environmental regulations, they argue that scientists (especially life scientists) should align with big government, join forces in an unrelenting campaign to gradually create changes in behavior so environmental policies will be more easily accepted over the course of some time.

“Life scientists could make fundamental contributions to this agenda through targeted research on the emergence of social norms”, the group asserts.

“many of the empirical studies cited in this article originate in law, psychology, economics, behavioral economics, anthropology, political science, and sociology. We know, for example, that the effective management of any commons requires sensitivity to local conditions, sound monitoring, graduated sanctions, and conflict-resolution mechanisms.”

Who better to guide the sheep towards “good environmental citizenship” than those scientists specialized in social engineering:

“Life scientists have a role to play in this by extending their existing theoretical analyses. To be effective, scholars of all stripes will have to extend their capacity to collaborate with decision- and policymakers in order to ensure realism and relevance.”

The scientists would, in such an environmental dictatorship, also have a monitoring capacity:

“Scientists could effectively examine how combinations of different policy interventions and of the relative timing of deployment play out.”

The paper is concluded with three distinct recommendations to both scientists and governmental agencies:

“(1) the greater inclusion of social and behavioral scientists in periodic environmental policy assessments; (2) the establishment of teams of scholars and policymakers that can assess, on policy-relevant timescales, the short- and long-term efficiency of policy interventions; and (3) the alteration of academic norms to allow more progress on these issues.”
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This entire publication is a clear and unmistakable sign that a scientific dictatorship is emerging under the pretext of environmentalism. More government control through regulations and fines combined with a proactive scientific community, brainwashing people into accepting this increasing governmental control where they would otherwise reject it. And guess who should be the coordinating body of this scientific dictatorship, according to the report:

“Teams might be supported by permanent entities that maintain communication with policymakers; these will differ among nations but could be attached to the United Nations and its subsidiary bodies in the international context. One potential model is a national commitment of scientific talent in the service of United Nations agencies.”

The United Nations. Of course!

“These teams could also be charged with anticipating crises and evaluating potential policy responses in advance, since detailed evaluation in the midst of a crisis may be problematic; such emergency preparedness would probably focus on the immediate effects of policies on behaviors rather than on changing social norms, because this is likely to be of greatest relevance in a crisis.”

All this talk of putting the UN behind the steering wheel of American government and the American scientific community points to the coming of age of the dreaded scientific dictatorship, against which many observers have warned us.

Before one can understand the nature of partisan or party politics, a correct comprehension of The Choice of Ideology is essential.

“Contemporary Political Ideologies is a text book that has been around for a long time. Many of the usual suspects are covered: Capitalism, Socialism, Democracy, Conservatism, Liberalism, Nationalism, Marxism, Fascism, Anarchism, Libertarianism, Feminism and Environmentalism. Since written, additional offshoots have come to include: Neoconservatism, the Paleo versions of Conservatism and Libertarianism and what we will call “Inherit Populism”.

These broad based viewpoints have distinctions, sometimes subtle, often dramatic. The reason why partisan politics is a blood sport is that it is waged to achieve a false party line. BREAKING ALL THE RULES advocates a paleo-conservative philosophy based upon traditional values and moral principles. Consistent with the historic legacy of the founding of this Nation is a lament that most inhabitants are oblivious to our ingenious heritage and purpose of the American Revolution.

The article, Ideology Matters, But What Is It?, clearly repudiates the destructive ideologies that result in the suicidal course this country has taken, especially in the last century.

“The test for valid support is simple. The legacy of the New Deal to the Good Society has constructed a total reputation of American ideals. To deny this reality, is to associate yourself with the cause of depravity. There is no room to compromise on this axiom. The lines are clear, distinct and irrefutable. Career operatives rationalize their support for destructive policies as the price for civility. The notion that getting along with the opposition that is bent upon the destruction of the Nation is psychotic. When polls are cited that the public wants less ranker, leadership sinks into the cauldron of deceit and treachery of our heritage. Those of us who advocate a State responsive and accountable to the citizen, are left with few champions to carry the banner of limited government.”

Rejecting an artificial left/right template for a deeper analysis of the publically accepted nomenclature of liberal vs. conservative is a constructive leap to appreciate the differences that are so prevalent among different factions within society.

How individuals assess politics often rests upon their own personality and outlook. From a report in Clinician’s Digest, the following insights are useful.

“Personality differences are a leading candidate in the race toward understanding the rift between political liberals and conservatives. Using data compiled from nearly 20,000 respondents, Columbia University researcher Dana Carney and colleagues found that two common personality traits reliably differentiated individuals with liberal or conservative identifications. Liberals reported greater openness, whereas conservatives reported higher conscientiousness. This means that liberals (at least in their own estimation) saw themselves as more creative, flexible, tolerant of ambiguity, and open to new ideas and experiences. Across the political personality divide, conservatives self-identified as more persistent, orderly, moralistic, and methodical.

Evidence suggests that these personality differences between liberals and conservatives begin to emerge at an early age. A 20-year longitudinal study by Jack and Jeanne Block showed that those who grew up to be liberals were originally assessed by their preschool teachers as more emotionally expressive, gregarious, and impulsive when compared to those who became conservatives, who were considered more inhibited, uncertain, and controlled. Liberals may show greater tolerance for diversity and creativity, but they may also be more impulsive, indecisive, and irresponsible. On the flip side, conservatives may be organized, stable, and thrifty, but also have stronger just-world beliefs (leading to a greater tolerance for inequality), and stronger fears of mortality and ambiguity. Even recent neuroscience work published in Current Biology from University College London identifies fundamental differences in the partisan brain. Brain scans revealed a larger amygdala in self-identified conservatives and a larger anterior cingulate cortex in liberals, leading the researchers to conclude that conservatives may be more acute at detecting threats around them, whereas liberals may be more adept at handling conflicting information and uncertainty.”

Partisan party proponents, both Democrats and Republicans are practicing Statists. Mutual lust to control the levers of government closes ranks, when an external threat comes from dissenting citizens. This background brings us to examine the essay, Speaking Out Against Government is a Mental Disorder, by Susanne Posel.

“According to the psychiatric manual, the DSM-IV-TR, oppositional defiant disorder (ODD) is a mental disease wherein free thinkers, non-conformists, civil disobedience supporters, those who question authority and are perceived as being hostile toward the government are labeled mentally ill. Psychiatrists refer to this mental defect as “Mentality III”.

negativistic and defiant behaviors are expressed by persistent stubbornness

resistance to directions

unwillingness to compromise, give in, or negotiate with adults or peers

defiance may also include deliberate or persistent testing of limits, usually by ignoring orders, arguing, and failing to accept blame for misdeeds

hostility can be directed at adults or peers and is shown by deliberately annoying others or by verbal aggression (usually without the more serious physical aggression seen in Conduct Disorder)

If this alleged ailment has, any legitimate clinical application, it seems that these warning signs, foremost apply to elected officials and party organizations. Reinforcing the practice of the partisan political psychopathic art, John D. Mayer in Psychology Today asks two questions. The first is relevant while the second is naive.

“If members of Congress and the executive branch extended genuine respect to one another, wouldn’t they recognize that it is more important to vote for that which is best for the country rather than for that which may promote their political party? If they truly respected one another, wouldn’t the best and brightest among them join in a thoughtful give-and-take to promote good legislation above partisanship?”

Where is the evidence that government has the objective of “doing what is best for the country”? Frankly, the body of facts is so overwhelming that every successive administration builds upon the treason of the last government, that only a faint memory of a constitutional Republic exists. The notion that power hungry grabbers are capable of transcending partisan rhetoric for a good purpose is patently absurd. The only cooperation that ever unites the party politics is to protect the despotism of the State.

“Haidt helped devise a questionnaire that gauged moral views by eliciting test-taker responses to statements in five categories: care/harm, fairness/cheating, loyalty/betrayal, authority/subversion, and sanctity/degradation. Haidt likens these moral groupings to the five taste receptors of the tongue (sweet, sour, bitter, savory, salty). It turns out that liberal receptors failed to engage on questions of loyalty, authority, and sanctity. Conservatives, on the other hand, reacted to all five moral categories more or less equally. Haidt’s conclusion is that his fellow liberals are morally tone deaf. “Republicans understand moral psychology,” Haidt concedes. “Democrats don’t.”

It gets worse for liberals. Haidt and colleagues asked their subjects to answer their questionnaire as if they were liberals, as if they were conservatives, and as themselves. Liberals don’t know their political adversaries nearly as well as the right knows them. “The results were clear and consistent. Moderates and conservatives were most accurate in their predictions, whether they were pretending to be liberals or conservatives. Liberals were the least accurate, especially those who described themselves as ‘very liberal.’ The biggest errors in the whole study came when liberals answered the Care and Fairness questions while pretending to be conservatives.” Liberals see caricatures when they see conservatives.

The thesis may prove cathartic for Republican readers. But it’s more useful to Democrats.”

As long as partisan political parties, ignore moral principles, and the “States Rights” framework of limited government the psychological disorders of the ultimate Statist mental illness will spread. It is always amusing when partisan critics rant about the lack of condemnation against opposing party foes, when their silence about the abuses of their patron party hacks goes unspoken.

It is bad enough how ignorant the average voter is when they cast their ballot. As long as people accept and tolerate the two party diatribes against viewpoints that challenge the establishment power cabal, there are no viable prospects for elective solutions. As of this writing, the Rasmussen Reports daily Presidential Tracking Poll has, “Mitt Romney attracting support from 48% of voters nationwide, while President Obama earns the vote from 47%. One percent (1%) prefers some other candidate, and four percent (4%) are undecided.”

How can any thinking and responsible American vote for either candidate? Both are tyrannical teammates for the globalist franchise. Those who speak out against the establishment order are not the ones with a mental illness. Those who vote for their own demise are one-step removed from the infective treachery coming out of the federal government. Paleo-conservative ideology is the righteous political philosophy for a Free People. What is the state of your own mental health?

Sartre is the publisher, editor, and writer for Breaking All The Rules. He can be reached at: BATR
Sartre is a regular columnist for Veracity Voice

“In 1919, Georg Lukacs became Deputy Commissar for Culture in the short-lived Bolshevik Bela Kun regime in Hungary. He immediately set plans in motion to de-Christianize Hungary. Reasoning that if Christian sexual ethics could be undermined among children, then both the hated (traditional) family and the Church would be dealt a crippling blow, Lukacs launched a radical sex education program in the schools. Sex lectures were organized and literature handed out which graphically instructed youth in free love (promiscuity) and sexual intercourse while simultaneously encouraging them to deride and reject Christian moral ethics, monogamy, and parental and church authority. All of this was accompanied by a reign of cultural terror perpetrated against parents, priests, and dissenters.” “Hungary’s youth, having been fed a steady diet of values-neutral (atheism) and radical sex education while simultaneously encouraged to rebel against all authority, easily turned into delinquents ranging from bullies and petty thieves to sex predators, murderers, and sociopaths.” (Cultural Marxism, L. Kimball)

Today the words Marxist, communist, and fascist have devolved into essentially meaningless, emotionalized epitaphs brandished by people whose understanding of their true meaning is so lacking as to be on a par with “I hate you!” and “you miserable scum bag!”

So just what are Fascist Socialism, Marxist Communism and its contemporary version, Cultural Marxism?

At the deepest, most important level of all, these ideologies are really about the human condition after the Fall and the causes of evil and suffering as defined by fallen mankind.

From the moment that Adam and Eve were ushered out of paradise, men began complaining:

“Why must we die? Why must there be decay? Why must we work? Why does he have (fill in the blanks) but I do not? That’s unfair! Why can’t we say, do and have whatever we desire? If it feels good (libidinous impulses) then why shouldn’t we do it? Why must there be authority, rules, norms, absolutes, and consequences? Why does it have to be this way? Why can’t it be the way we want it to be?”

And finally: Who or what is the cause of our suffering?

From Nimrod to Karl Marx and contemporary rebels and apostates, the answer is the transcendent Authority of God the Father Almighty together with the fallen condition of man and the world:

“Now it was Nimrod who excited them to such an affront and contempt of God.” He “changed the government into tyranny” in order to turn them away from God and make them dependent upon his own power. He also would be revenged upon God “if he should have a mind to drown the world again; for that he would build a tower too high for the waters to be able to reach!” And he would “avenge himself on God for destroying their forefathers.” (Jewish historian Josephus cited in” Who was Nimrod?” Dr. David Livingston)

Karl Marx dreamt of ruining the world created by God the Father and proclaiming himself ‘god.’ In his poem “Human Pride,” he writes that after ruining the world:

“I will wander godlike and victorious /Through the ruins of the world/ And, giving my words an active force/ I will feel equal to the Creator.” ((Marx and Satan, Richard Wurmbrand, pp. 30-31)

Marx’s comrade in arms, Mikhail Bakunin, aligned himself with the Devil and declared:

“The Evil One is the satanic revolt against divine authority….Socialists recognize each other by the words, “In the name of the one to whom a great wrong has been done….Satan (is) the eternal rebel, the first freethinker and the emancipator of worlds.” (Mikhail Bakunin, ibid, p. 27)

After confessing to his ‘cosmic authority’ problem, New York University professor Thomas Nagel admits:

“I want atheism to be true and am made uneasy by the fact that some of the most intelligent and well-informed people I know are religious believers. It isn’t just that I don’t believe in God (but) that I hope there is no God! I don’t want there to be a God; I don’t want the universe to be like that.” (The Rage Against God, Peter Hitchens, p. 150)

It is when the terrible-willed and their followers–most generally pleasure-seeking hedonists– become possessive of the things of this world and resentful of the “way things are” that they rebel against God the Father and raise up new Towers of Babel—separate paradises— here on earth. With Nimrod it was Babylon. Marx’s Tower was the materialist Communist worker’s paradise while Hitler’s Babel was his socialist Third Reich. Today’s occult New Age heralds the coming of the final Tower—a planetary communist paradise, but it will be blatantly Luciferic rather than materialist.

In the preface to “The Silmarillion,” the all-important creation account that sets the stage for the subsequent Lord of the Rings trilogy, J.R.R. Tolkien observes of the terrible-willed:

“…. (they) will rebel against the laws of the Creator—especially against mortality.” Possessiveness toward the things of this world alone or together with hatred of death and decay “will lead to the desire for Power, for making the will more quickly effective–and so to the Machine (magic).” (p. xiii)

Tolkien defines magic as the abuse of God-given talents and powers fueled by the:

“corrupted motive of dominating: bull-dozing the real world, or coercing other wills” by way of ideologies designed for the unmaking of the world as it is.

In other words, when pride, wrath, lust and envy inflate to monstrous proportions it is then that the terrible-willed declare the death of God, usurp His powers, declare themselves gods and invent reality-denying ideologies such as rationalism, materialism, liberalism, secularism, determinism, green environmentalism, socialism, and evolutionism to seduce and coerce other wills:

“Darwinism came at the desired time; Darwin’s theory that man is the descendant of a lower animal destroyed the entire foundation of Christian dogma. “ (Anton Pannekoek, Marxism And Darwinism, Translated by Nathan Weiser. Transcribed for the Internet by Jon Muller, Chicago, Charles H. Kerr & Company Co-operative Copyright, 1912 by Charles H. Kerr & Company)

And of course straight-forward questions are absolutely forbidden lest they expose the corpus of lies, hate, hypocrisy, deceit and delusion underlying and fueling the ‘Machine.’

On the subject of the Machine, Herbert Schlossberg perceptively observed:

“Exalting mankind to the status of deity…dates from the farthest reaches of antiquity, but its development into an ideology embracing the masses is a characteristic of modernity.” (Herbert Schlossberg, cited in The Seduction of Christianity, Dave Hunt and T.A. McMahon)

Ex-Communist atheist Alexander Solzhenitsyn described the terrible-willed god-men as the masters of the world who, bearing no evil within themselves, have declared that all the evils of the world are caused not by man’s fallen human condition but by deterministic external or natural causes— unjust, unfair systems.

In his book, “Cry Havoc: The Great American Bring-Down and How it Happened,” Ralph de Toledano identifies the unfair, unjust systems:

“the morality that derives from the Old and New Testaments, the traditional family, the respect for the past as a guide to the future, the restraint of man’s baser instincts, and a socio-political organization which guaranteed freedom without license. Of these obstacles, the two greatest were God and the family.” (p. 26)

Former atheist Peter Hitchens notes that throughout the West the Left’s hostility to Christian theism is specific because orthodox Christianity:

“….is the religion of their own homes and homeland, the form in which they have encountered—and generally disliked and resented—the power of God in their own lives…..the Left sympathizes with Islam because (it is) the enemy of their (own enemy, the Christian culture).” (Hitchens, p. 131)

Hostility to God and Christianity is not confined to just the Left but shared equally with GOP atheist insiders. Because of their hostility to God and Christianity they hold in utter contempt the middle-class, mainly Christian constituents they must rely upon to be re-elected.

Solzhenitsyn summarized the whole meaning of Fascism, Marxist Communism and Cultural Marxism when he described their three main causes as rebellion against God the Father quickly followed by apostasy and denial of man’s fallen condition, allowing the rebels and apostates to comfortably “forget” that evil cuts right through the hearts of all men, themselves included.

Peter Hitchens writes that atheists and antitheists who have the good fortune to live in a society governed by religious belief:

“….may feel free from absolute moral bonds, while those around them are not. This is a tremendous liberation for anyone who is even slightly selfish. And what clever person is not imaginatively and cunningly selfish?” (Peter Hitchens, p. 148)

Modern ideologies and the murderous utopian systems spawned by them are spiritual diseases of fallen men. The only cure is spiritual regeneration through submission to God the Father Almighty.

Linda Kimball writes on culture, politics, and worldview. Her articles are published nationally and internationally. Linda can be reached at:lindykimball@msn.com

Freedom of choice and basic individual rights are being sacrificed in the interest of the common good, under the United Nations’ agenda for the 21st century, called Agenda 21. Under the veil of feel-good terms like “sustainable development” and “social equity”, a self-described “new world order” is being systematically implemented around the globe, that is organized around the principle that nature is the most fundamental truth, and which requires all spheres of society to conform to that principle, under the government of a ruling elite (the United Nations and the organizations that support it). When faced with evidence of this unbelievable agenda, the natural question that comes to mind is “Why?”

Two Major Forces

There are really two major engines driving the new world agenda: a quest for control, and fundamental religious belief. What makes this paradigm so dangerous, and effective, is that it merges both forces together under the stated goal of taking care of the environment. The religious background to this environmental agenda is called Gaia, or the worship of the earth. Based on the gaia hypothesis, originally proposed by James Lovelock, this new age religious movement, cosmology, is woven throughout all of the major initiatives, forums, and organizations of the sustainable development agenda. To begin to understand the reasons behind the agenda for a new world order, it is critical to investigate the religious beliefs of the organizations and individuals behind it, and how those convictions undergird an agenda of control.

The new age spiritual movement of Gaia

One of most influential NGOs (Non-governmental organizations) allied closely with the U.N. and intimately involved in their creation of agenda is theTemple of Understanding (TOU), located in The Cathedral of St. John the Divine in New York City. This organization’s objectives are, according to its website, “developing an appreciation of religious and cultural diversity, educating for global citizenship and sustainability, expanding public discourse on faith and ecology, and creating just and peaceful communities”. Most importantly, although not explicitly stated by the TOU, the cathedral is the center of cosmology, or the worship of Gaia. The Cathedral of St. John the Divine is not only home to the TOU, but has also previously housed theNational Religious Partnership for the Environment, the Lindesfarne Association and the Gaia Institute, which are all proponents of the gaia hypothesis.

Among its many globally-influential board of directors members is the Reverend Thomas Berry, the most prominent evangelist for the gaia hypothesis. The Wanderer Forum Quarterly describes the man’s religious philosophy: “Thomas Berry, C.P. claims that it is now time for the most significant change that Christian spirituality has yet experienced. This change is part of a much more comprehensive change in human consciousness brought about by the discovery of the evolutionary story of the universe. In speaking about a new cosmology he reminds us that we are the earth come to consciousness and, therefore, we are connected to the whole living community – that is, all people, animals, plants and the living organism of planet earth itself”. In Berry’s own words, according to The Florida Catholic (February 14, 1992), “We must rethink our ideas about God; we should place less emphasis on Christ as a person and redeemer. We should put the Bible away for 20 years while we radically rethink our religious ideas. What is needed is the change from an exploitative anthropocentrism to a participative biocentrism. This change requires something more than environmentalism.” Gaia has become much more than simply a scientific hypothesis. It has transformed into a religious movement which is the driving force behind global social change.

To help illuminate the beliefs of Gaia, as propogated by the TOU and many U.N. leaders and organizations behind the new world order agenda, it is helpful to review a U.N. report called Shared Vision, from the 1988 Global Forum of Spiritual and Parliamentary Leaders for Human Survival, which was founded by the Temple of Understanding. In summarizing the speech given at the conference by James Lovelock, founder of the Gaia hypothesis and author of Ages of Gaia, the report details, “…Lovelock’s contribution is to suggest that life on earth regulates its environment as if it were one huge organism. The name given to the organism – and the idea – is that of Gaia, the Greek earth goddess.” According to the report, Lovelock said, “She is of this Universe and, conceivably, a part of God. On Earth she is the source of life everlasting and is alive now; she gave birth to humankind and we are a part of her.” The report indicates that Lovelock…”…likened the current global warming to the first signs of a fever, but is worried that we are not allowing Gaia to recuperate”. In other words, Earth, as one huge organism, is seen as one with God. By doing damage to the Earth, humans are, according to this belief, damaging God. It is this spiritual conviction which provides the rabid determination behind the environmental movement, and the objectives of sustainable development.

Global Forum: Where religion of nature meets the politics of control

The 1988 Global Forum of Spiritual and Parliamentary Leaders for Human Survival began the marriage between religion and environmental objectives on a worldwide scale. From this conference, many additional forums around the world were organized to bring together world leaders in government, environment, religion, and science for the purpose of collaborating around the goals of sustainable development. The National Religious Partnership for the Environment (NRPE), created in 1993, came out of these global meetings. The NRPE developed a plan for “integrating issues of social justice and the environment” which included education and action kits to religious congregations around the world, training programs for religious students and leaders, and a variety of other worldwide actions specifically targeted to ensure that religious groups adopted the goals of this globalist environmental agenda. Worldwide religion, the objectives of sustainable development, and the Gaia movement all became wedded together into a tapestry which could only be woven effectively through broad-scale, worldwide control.

Religion of nature meets politics: Robert Muller

Dr. Robert Muller, former Assistant Secretary General to the U.N. and member of the Board of Advisors to the Temple of Understanding (which founded the Global Forum), gives evidence to the marriage of Gaia with the movement of sustainable development in his paper A Cosmological Vision of the Future from 1989: “Now we’re learning that perhaps this planet has not been created for humans, but that humans have been created for the planet…We are living Earth. Each of us is a cell, a perceptive nervous unit of the Earth. The living consciousness of the Earth is beginning to operate through us…We have now a world brain which determines what can be dangerous or mortal for the planet: the United Nations and its agencies, and innumberable (sic) groups and networks around the world, are part of the brain. This is our newly discovered meaning…we are a global family living in a global home. We are in the process of becoming a global civilization…The third millennium should be a spiritual millennium, a millennium which will see the integration and harmony of humanity with creation, with nature, with the planet, with the cosmos and with eternity.” This key U.N. leader, in charge of creating policy on a worldwide scale, shows how cosmological faith drives an agenda for a global community, in the interest of protecting the god of nature. When the scope of this religious conviction becomes clear, it is easy to understand how it leads to an agenda of globalized control, in order to align the actions of human society toward elevating the goals of taking care of Gaia above all else, including the people who are a part of her.

Muller won the UNESCO Prize 1989 for Peace Education for his World Core Curriculum, an educational initiative to make students into global citizens who take care of the planet. According to Muller’s website, robertmuller.org, Muller says, “The entire humanity must be reprogrammed through a right global inducation (Latin ex-ducare, to lead out, in-ducare, to lead into)”. Just what is this U.N.-endorsed global education, as created by this proponent of Gaia? Muller explained the reasons behind his World Core Curriculum in a 1995 speech to the College of Law at the University of Denver: “I’ve come to the conclusion that the only correct education that I have received in my life was from the United Nations. We should replace the word politics by planetics. We need planetary management, planetary caretakers. We need global sciences. We need a science of a global psychology, a global sociology, a global anthropology. Then I made my proposal for a World Core Curriculum.” The first principle of the curriculum is: “Assisting the child in becoming an integrated individual who can deal with personal experience while seeing himself as a part of ‘the greater whole.’ In other words, promote growth of the group idea, so that group good, group understanding, group interrelations and group goodwill replace all limited, self-centered objectives, leading to group consciousness.” Muller’s influential philosophy is the perfect example of how nature-centered spirituality and an agenda of worldwide control go hand in hand with the United Nations and its supporting organizations.

Religion of nature meets politics: Maurice Strong

This religious conviction and political agenda of control is shared by, according to many accounts, the most powerful man in the world. Maurice Strong was Secretary General of the U.N.’s Rio Earth Summit in 1992 (where Agenda 21 was adopted), and former Executive Director of United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP). According to Henry Lamb, one of the most researched writers that exists on the issues of globalism, “He, perhaps more than any other single person, is responsible for the development of a global agenda now being implemented throughout the world.” Strong, a billionaire and a brilliant, phenomenally influential U.N. bureaucrat, is a devotee of earth-bound spirituality aligned with the Gaia movement. To help illuminate the scope of his influence, consider that he has served in a multitude of key international positions, including Director of the World Economic Forum Foundation, Chairman of the Earth Council, Chairman of the Stockholm Environment Institute, Senior Advisor to the President of the World Bank, Chairman of the World Resources Institute, and, most interestingly, Finance Director at the Temple of Understanding. Strong and his wife, Hanne, created the Manitou Foundation in 1988 “to provide land and financial support to qualified spiritual organizations, earth stewardship programs, and related educational opportunities for youth and adults” according to theCrestone Institute. Their 200,000 acre ranch near Crestone, Colorado, known as Baca Grande, is now a new age spiritual center run by Strong’s wife.

Strong co-founded the Earth Charter Commission with Mikhail Gorbachev in 1997. This document, which has been endorsed by the U.N., reveals the spiritual nature of the agenda for sustainable development. In its preamble, the Earth Charter states, “We must join together to bring forth a sustainable global society founded on respect for nature, universal human rights, economic justice, and a culture of peace…The protection of Earth’s vitality, diversity, and beauty is a sacred trust“. After addressing the fact that “the benefits of development are not shared equitably…” (the communistic principle of redistribution of wealth from the haves to the have-nots), the preamble goes on to express: “The emergence of a global civil society is creating new opportunities to build a democratic and humane world. Our environmental, economic, political, social, and spiritual challenges are interconnected, and together we can forge inclusive solutions…The spirit of human solidarity and kinship with all life is strengthened when we live withreverence for the mystery of being, gratitude for the gift of life, and humility regarding the human place in nature“. Strong’s comments in his opening address at the Rio Earth Summit summarize his philosophy clearly: “It is the responsibility of each human being today to choose between the force of darkness and the force of light… We must therefore transform our attitudes, and adopt a renewed respect for the superior laws of divine nature.” This is not simply an idealistic agenda, but a deeply rooted spiritual belief about nature as god. And it is an agenda, driven by religious conviction, and intricately interconnected with a plan for a tightly controlled global society, that is being propagated by the most influential individuals and organizations on the planet.

The modern face of Gaia and the environment: Al Gore

Former Vice President Al Gore is a devotee of Gaia, and the modern face of the environmental movement. Gore has been involved with the Temple of Understanding, including giving a sermon at its annual celebration of St. Francis, a ceremony whose Blessing of the Animals included blessings for an elephant, algae, and a bowl of worms and compost. According to a 1994 publication by the Cathedral at St. John the Divine, at this sermon Gore asserted, “God is not separate from the earth”. Gore’s famous book, Earth in the Balance, has three chapters devoted to the “Earth Goddess”, and on page 259 he writes, “”This we know: the Earth does not belong to man, man belongs to the Earth. All things are connected like the blood that unites us all.” The theme repeats itself: a pantheistic, new age belief that the earth is god, and humanity is here to protect her above all else.

As you begin reading this interview, take a look at the nearest clock. Now, dig this: Since yesterday at the same exact time, 200,000 acres of rainforest have been destroyed, over 100 plant and animal species have gone extinct, 13 million tons of toxic chemicals were released across the globe, and 29,158 children under the age of five died from preventable causes.

Worst of all, there’s nothing unique about the past 24 hours. It’s business as usual, a daily reality—and no amount of CFL bulbs, recycled toilet paper, or Sierra Club donations will change it even a tiny bit.

As you do your best to convince yourself of the vast chasm between the two wings of America’s single corporate party, I suggest you listen carefully to hear if even one of the politicians mentions any of the following:

This is just a minute sampling, folks, and sorry, but your hybrid ain’t helping. That reusable shopping bag you bring to the market has zero impact. Your home composting kit is not gonna start a revolution.

In fact, even if every single person in the US made every single change suggested in the movie An Inconvenient Truth, carbon emissions would fall by only 21%—in contrast to the 75% emissions decrease that scientific consensus believes must happen…now.

None of this, of course, is news to Derrick Jensen. He is the author of essential works such as A Language Older Than Words and Endgame. His worldview has nothing to do with party politics, incremental reform, leftist in-fighting, corporate compromise, or anything that seeks to tweak but ultimately maintain the ongoing global crime we call civilization.

“My loyalty,” he told me, “is with the nonhuman and human victims (or targets) of this culture, and my work is toward stopping this culture’s assaults on nonhumans, on the land, on the planet itself, on women, on indigenous peoples, on the poor.”

If you’ve grown weary (and wary) of the entrenched Left and all the words left unspoken, you owe it yourself to read the rest of our conversation below. Afterwards, you just might start realizing that you also owe to the planet to get busy.

Our exchange took place during the week of January 17 and went a little something like this…

Mickey Z.: We’re starting this conversation as another MLK Day is observed. Not much of a chance that we’ll hear this Dr. King quote—”The question is not whether we will be extremists, but what kind of extremists we will be”—mentioned much by the corporate media, huh?

Derrick Jensen: Just today I read an article stating that, no surprise, industrial-induced global warming will be far worse than estimated, and if carbon emissions continue as expected, could render much of the planet uninhabitable within 100 years. Even now, 150-200 species are driven extinct every day. This culture extirpates indigenous peoples. The oceans are being murdered. And today I saw a study of rates of fire retardant in every fetus. And on and on. And yet those of us who are working to stop this planetary murder are sometimes characterized as extremists.

I think the real extremists are the people who value capitalism over life, the people who value civilization over life. I cannot think of any more extreme position than valuing this insane culture over life.

MZ: Not surprisingly, another major African-American figure from the 1960s—Malcolm X—had some positive words for extremism in the name of toppling that insane culture. Using Hamlet as a springboard, Malcolm wrote:

“(Hamlet) was in doubt about something—whether it was nobler in the mind of man to suffer the slings and arrows of outrageous fortune—moderation—or to take up arms against a sea of troubles and by opposing end them. And I go for that. If you take up arms, you’ll end it, but if you sit around and wait for the one who’s in power to make up his mind that he should end it, you’ll be waiting a long time. And in my opinion, the young generation of whites, blacks, browns, whatever else there is, you’re living at a time of extremism, a time of revolution, a time when there’s got to be a change. People in power have misused it and now there has to be a change and a better world has to be built and the only way it’s going to be built with—is with extreme methods. And I, for one, will join in with anyone—I don’t care what color you are—as long as you want to change this miserable condition that exists on this earth.”

DJ: I think the key has to do with wanting to change this miserable condition.

I try to be fairly inclusive of the people I would work with, but I’ve realized over the past many years that I’m not working toward the same goals as many of the environmentalists who are explicitly working to save capitalism or to save civilization, rather than the real world. In talks and interviews I often ask what all of the so-called solutions to global warming or the murder of the oceans, or biodiversity crash, etc, all have in common. And what they all have in common is that they all take industrial capitalism as a given, and the natural world as that which must conform to industrial capitalism. That is literally insane, in terms of being out of touch with physical reality. I mean, look at Lester Brown’s Plan B 4.0 to Save Civilization. What does he want to save? Could he be any more explicit? He wants to save civilization. But civilization is killing the planet. It’s like writing a book about how to save a serial killer who is murdering so many people he’s running out of victims. We see this attitude all the time. When people, for example, ask how we can stop global warming, they’re not asking how we can stop global warming; they’re asking how we can stop global warming without changing the physical conditions (burning oil and gas, deforestation, industrial agriculture, and so on) that lead to global warming. And the answer to that question is that you can’t. Likewise, when they ask how we can save salmon, they aren’t really asking how we can save salmon, they’re asking how we can save salmon without removing dams, stopping industrial logging, stopping industrial agriculture, stopping industrial fishing, stopping the murder of the oceans, stopping global warming, and so on.

A question I keep asking is: with whom (or what) do you identify? Where is your loyalty? Whom, or what do you want to save? And if what you really want to save is this “miserable condition”—capitalism, civilization, what have you—at the expense of the planet, then we’re not really working toward the same goal, are we? My loyalty is with the nonhuman and human victims (or targets) of this culture, and my work is toward stopping this culture’s assaults on nonhumans, on the land, on the planet itself, on women, on indigenous peoples, on the poor.

MZ: It’s a testament to the power of propaganda how even well-meaning folks will choose the options—both public and private—that work against their own interests. Gay rights activists are currently applauding the alleged repeal of “don’t ask, don’t tell.” In the name of promoting diversity and inclusion, they are celebrating the ability to volunteer for an institution that exists to violently crush all diversity and inclusion.

The conditioning is so interwoven throughout every aspect of our culture that even respected Leftist thinkers simply cannot comprehend your comment, “civilization is killing the planet” and resort to retorts about “misanthropy.”

So, the question must asked, Derrick: Can these people be reached with the message that we can’t have industrial capitalism as a given without all the murderous side effects?

DJ: There’s a great line by Upton Sinclair about how it’s hard to make a man [sic] understand something when his [sic] job depends on him not understanding it. I think that’s true even more for entitlement. It’s hard to make someone understand something when their entitlement, their privilege, their comforts and elegancies, their perceived ability to control and manage, depends on it.

So much nature writing, social change theory, and environmental philosophy are at best irrelevant, and more often harmful in that they do not question human supremacism (or for that matter white supremacism, or male supremacism). They often do not question imperialism, including ecological imperialism. So often I feel like so many of them still want the goodies that come from imperialism (including ecological imperialism and sexual imperialism) far more than they want for these forms of imperialism to stop. And since the violence of imperialism is structural—inherent to the process—you can’t realistically expect imperialism to stop being violent just because you call it “green” or just because you wish with all your might.

Here’s another way to say this: as I say in Endgame, any way of life that requires the importation of resources will a) never be sustainable and b) always be based on violence, because a) requiring importation of resources means you are using more of that resource than the landbase can provide, which is by definition not sustainable (and as your city grows you’ll need an ever larger area to harm); and b) trade will never be sufficiently reliable, because if you require some resource (e.g., oil) and the people who live with or control that resource won’t trade you for it, you will take it, because you need it. It’s inherent. One of the many implications of this is that if you don’t question imperialism itself, the solutions you present will be absurd, and either irrelevant or harmful.

Here’s a story. A couple of weeks ago a tree fell down in a storm and knocked down an electric wire in this neighborhood. My neighbor told me about it, and when I saw the downed tree I looked and looked and looked for the stump, to see where the tree came from. I couldn’t find it. I’ve looked again every time I’ve gone by that place. Well, today I was walking and I saw where it came from. The top of a big tree had broken off. It was really obvious when I looked up instead of down. Point being (instant aphorism): You can search as thoroughly as is possible, but you’ll never find what you’re looking for if you’re looking in the wrong place.

This applies to everything from personal happiness to solutions to global warming.

But the problem is worse than mere entitlement. RD Laing came up with the three rules of a dysfunctional family:

Rule A is don’t.

Rule A.1 is Rule A does not exist

Rule A.2 is Never discuss the existence or nonexistence of Rules A, A.1, A.2

This is as true of dysfunctional cultures as dysfunctional families. So we cannot talk, for example, about the fact that this culture is only one way of living among many, that this way of living is based on conquest and the acquisition of power, that this way of life systematically destroys landbases, other cultures, and on and on. Systematically, functionally.

But it’s worse than this. In the 1960s a researcher attached electrodes to people’s eyeballs to track where they looked, and then showed them pictures. What the researcher found is that if the photo contained something that threatened the person’s worldview, the person’s eyes would not even track to it once: they would evidently see it out of the corners of their eyes, and know where not to look. So far too often you can make the point as reasonably as you can, and the person will have no idea what you are talking about.

MZ: Considering the glacial rate by which most humans – myself very much included – recognize and address destructive or self-destructive patterns in their personal life, it’s difficult to imagine a lot more humans allowing their eyeballs to focus in on global crises and their obscured causes. High Noon is approaching and it seems most of us don’t even know how to tell time.

Speaking of High Noon, I recently watched the classic 1952 film and found myself focused on the moment when Amy (Grace Kelly), the pacifist wife of Marshal Kane (Gary Cooper), shoots and kills a man to save her husband’s life. Earlier in the film, Amy had declared: “My father and my brother were killed by guns. They were on the right side but that didn’t help them any when the shooting started. My brother was nineteen. I watched him die. That’s when I became a Quaker. I don’t care who’s right or who’s wrong. There’s got to be some better way for people to live.”

However, she not only ends up shooting a man, she also fights off the main villain, which allows Marshal Kane to finish him. Now, before some readers run and tell Gandhi on me, what I’m proposing as the lesson is that when faced with the clarity a crisis can sometimes inspire, we can recognize that those clock hands are inching towards noon and surprise ourselves (as Grace Kelly’s character did) with our ability to take things to a new level.

If not, what chance do we (the animals, the trees, the eco-system, etc.) have?

DJ: Very little chance. Even if people don’t care about nonhumans, recent estimates are that billions, literally billions, of humans will die in what is beginning to be called a climate holocaust. This is if the temperature rises 4 degree Celsius.

And the most recent estimates are revealing that global warming is far worse than previously believed (have you ever noticed how the previous estimates were always low?), and could go up 16 degrees C within 90 years, rendering much of the planet uninhabitable (“Science stunner: On our current emissions path, CO2 levels in 2100 will hit levels last seen when the Earth was 29°F (16°C) hotter—Paleoclimate data suggests CO2 ‘may have at least twice the effect on global temperatures than currently projected by computer models'”). This means that there are young people now who will die in this climate holocaust. And there are too many people who prefer this wretched, destructive way of life over life on the planet, and literally over their own children. We need to stop this culture before it kills the planet.

MZ: Although I feel there’s way too much hand-holding in the realm of activism and far too many progressives sitting idle as they wait for a leader to give them direction, I must ask you this: What types of immediate direct action might you suggest to those reading this interview, in the name of stopping this culture before it kills the planet?

DJ: I think the important thing is that they start doing some form of activism. I can’t tell people what to do, because I don’t know what is important to them and I don’t know what their gifts are. But the important thing is that they start. Now. Today.

So how do you start? The problems are so huge! Well, the way I started as an activist was the result of the smartest thing I ever did. When I was in my mid-20s I realized I wasn’t paying enough for gasoline (in terms of including any of the ecological costs, etc), so for every dollar I spent on gas I would donate a dollar to an environmental organization (never a national or international organization, but rather local grassroots organizations), but since I didn’t have any money I would instead pay myself $5/hour to do activist work, whether it is writing letters to the editor or participating in demonstrations. My first demos were anti-fur demos and anti-circus demos. And don’t let your perceived ignorance stop you: I had no idea what exactly was wrong with circuses, but I knew they were exploitative of nonhuman animals and so I showed up, and other people handed me signs. If anyone asked me, What’s wrong with circuses? I just pointed them to the person standing next to me. I went from there to other forms of activism, including filing timber sale appeals, and so on. The point is that I started. At the time it cost $10 to fill my tank with gas, and if I filled it once a week, that meant two hours per week. And I started having so much fun with the activism that I stopped keeping track of how many hours I was doing activism, and just did it. But the important thing is that I got off my butt and started doing something.

It’s also important that when people do activism, that it not simply be personal stuff: environmentalism especially has gone down the dead end of lifestylism, where people think that changing their own life is sufficient. Just today I read an article that said, about water, “First of all, turn off the water when you don’t need it. It’s that simple. I don’t want to sound too preachy, but, according to UNICEF and the World Health Organization, lack of access to clean drinking water kills about 4,500 children per day. The water won’t magically travel from our taps to someone in need, but creating a mind-set of conservation will certainly help. There is absolutely no purpose served by letting water you are not using run down the drain.” This is just absurd. Yes, lack of access to clean water kills 4500 children per day, but it’s not because of my own water usage. 90 percent of the water used by humans is used by agriculture and industry. So all these environmental pleas for simple living are tremendous misdirection: these children (and what about the salmon children, and the sturgeon children, and so on) aren’t dying because I brushed my teeth: they’re dying because agriculture and industry are stealing the water. Just yesterday I read that Turkey is sacrificing all nature reserves to put in dams. This is not so people can have showers. It’s for agriculture and industry.

I live pretty simply, but that’s because I’m a cheapskate. I turn off the water while I brush my teeth, too. Big fucking deal. That is not a political act. There are no personal solutions to social problems. None.

So when I say that people should do some activism, I mean do something good for your landbase. Stop destructive activities. Do rehabilitation. Or if your primary emergency is violence against women, then do work against domestic violence, or against pornography, or against the trafficking in women. Get started.

Like Joe Hill said, “Don’t mourn, organize.”

MZ: I like to tell people that we live in the best time ever to be an activist. We’re on the brink of economic, social, and environmental collapse. What a time to be alive. We can take part in the most important work humans have ever undertaken. How lucky are we? In this era of “hope and change,” I say action is always better than hope. Or, as Rita Mae Brown said, “Never hope more than you work.”

DJ: Yes, I get so tired of people saying they hope salmon survive, or hope this or hope that. But what is hope? Hope is a longing for a future condition over which we have no agency. That’s how we use the word in every day language. I don’t say, “Gosh, I hope I put my shoes on before I go outside.” I just do it. On the other hand, the next time I get on a plane I hope it doesn’t crash. After I get on the plane I have no agency. Think of this: if a parent says to an eight-year-old child, “Please clean your room,” and the child says, “I hope it gets done,” we all know that’s ridiculous. I asked an eight-year-old what would happen if she said that to her parents, and she said, “Someone has to clean the room!”

That kid is smarter than a lot of environmentalists. It’s ridiculous to say we hope global warming doesn’t kill the planet when we can stop the oil economy that is causing global warming. I’m not interested in hope. I’m interested in agency, and I’m interested in people no longer waiting for some miracle to solve their problems. We need to do what is necessary.

MZ: When you first began writing and speaking about civilization and the eventual collapse, did you ever truly imagine that you’d be around to see things as bad as they are right now?

DJ: No. And even though I wrote in The Culture of Make Believe about the ways in which economic collapse can lead to more and more over brownshirt-ism and fascism, I’m still kind of stunned at the way it is happening here. But more to the point, even though I’ve written something on the order of fifteen books about this culture’s insanity, I still cannot believe this isn’t all a bad dream, with this frenzied maintenance of this culture as the world is murdered. I keep wanting to wake up, but each time I awaken this culture is still killing the planet, and not many people care.

MZ: I’m sure you can’t even calculate how many times you’ve been interviewed but I’m wondering if there’s a question you always wished you’d been asked but so far, no one has done so. If so, by way of wrapping up, please feel free to ask and answer that question.

DJ: Four questions:

Q: You’ve said many times that you don’t believe that humans are particularly more sentient than other animals. Where do you draw the line?

A: I don’t draw the line at all. I don’t see any reason to believe anything other than that the universe is full of a wild symphony of wildly different voices, wildly different intelligences. Humans have human intelligence, which is no greater nor less than octopi intelligence, which is no greater nor less than redwood intelligence, which is no greater nor less than flu virus intelligence, which is no greater nor less than granite intelligence, which is no greater nor less than river intelligence, and so on.

Q: How did the world get to be such a beautiful and wonderful and fecund place in the first place?

A: By everyone making the world a more beautiful and wonderful and fecund place by living and dying. By plants and animals and fungi and viruses and bacteria and rocks and rivers and so on making the world a better place. Salmon makes forests better places because of their existence. The Mississippi River makes that region a better place because of its existence. Bison make the Great Plains a better place because of their existence.

Civilized humans do not make the world a better place because of their existence. They are collectively and individually making the world a less beautiful and wonderful and fecund place. How can you make the world a better place? What can you do to make the landbase where you live more healthy, more beautiful, more fecund? And why aren’t you doing it?

Q: What will it take for the planet to survive?

A: The eradication of industrial civilization. Industrial civilization is functionally, systematically incompatible with life.

The good news is that industrial civilization is in the process of collapsing.

The bad news is that it is taking down too much of the planet with it.

Q: So if industrial civilization is collapsing, why shouldn’t we just hunker down and make our lifeboats and protect our own, and basically take care of our own precious little asses?

A: I would contrast the narcissism and cowardice of this attitude with that expressed by Henning von Tresckow, one of the members of the German resistance to Hitler in World War II. When the Allies invaded France in 1944, anybody paying any attention at all knew that the Nazis were going to lose: it was just a matter of time. So some members of the resistance suggested that they stop working to take down the Nazis, and instead just protect themselves until the war was over, basically hunker down and make their lifeboats and protect their own. Henning von Tresckow responded that every day the Nazis were killing 16,000 innocent civilians, so basically every day sooner they could bring down the Nazis would save 16,000 innocent civilians.

There is more courage and wisdom and integrity in that statement than in all the statements of all the craven lifeboatists put together.

Between 150 and 200 species went extinct today. They were my brothers and sisters. It is not sufficient to merely hunker down and wait for the horrors to stop. Salmon won’t survive that long. Sturgeon won’t survive that long. Delta smelt won’t survive that long.

Here’s another way to say all this. I would contrast the narcissism and cowardice of the lifeboatists with the attitude expressed by my dear friend, and the person who really got me started in environmentalism, John Osborn. He has devoted his life to saving as much of the wild as he can, through organized political resistance. When asked why he does this work, he always says, “We cannot predict the future. But as things become increasingly chaotic, I want to make sure that some doors remain open.” What he means by that is that if grizzly bears are around in 30 years they may be around in fifty. If they are gone in 30 they are gone forever. If he can keep this or that valley of old growth standing, it may be standing in 50 years. If it’s gone now, it will be gone for a long, long time, maybe forever.

As you said, Mickey Z, we are living at a time when we have perhaps more leverage than at many previous times. Any destructive activity we can halt now may protect that area until the collapse: people couldn’t realistically say that in the 1920s. I believe it was David Brower who said that every environmental victory was temporary while every loss was permanent. I think we are quickly reaching the point where every victory can be permanent.

One final thing: the single most effective recruiting tool for the French Resistance in WWII was D-Day, because the French realized once and for all that the Germans weren’t invincible. Knowing that this culture is collapsing should not lead us into narcissism and cowardice, but should give us courage, and should lead us to defend the victims of this culture.

For more about Derrick Jensen and his work, you can find him on the Web here.

Mickey Z. is probably the only person on the planet to have appeared in both a karate flick with Billy “Tae Bo” Blanks and a political book with Howard Zinn. He is the author of 9 books—most recently Self Defense for Radicals and his second novel, Dear Vito—and can be found on the Web at http://www.mickeyz.net.

Almost everyone concerned with the future of humanity and concerned about the usage of the resources the earth can provide to humanity in the future assumes that environmentalism and technology will reduce the resources used by humanity in the future. They are just plain wrong. Environmentalism and technology will not cause a reduction in resource usage. In fact, it is highly likely that every technological advance will cause an increase in the usage of resources.

Assume that instead of getting 20 miles per gallon an automobile gets 40 miles per gallon. Based on that assumption there are two possibilities—a) Drive the same number of miles and save money due to using less gas (say save $500.00 for the year): b) Since it is now cheaper to go some place due to better gas mileage, increase the miles driven to offset the increase in miles per gallon. I will not discuss a combination of the two possibilities (save some money, but less than $500.00 and drive more miles, but less than the amount necessary to offset the gas savings cost) as the combination doesn’t change the analysis below.

If the car were driven twice the number of miles, the total gas usage would be the same, but the usage of other resources would be increased—the car would wear out sooner, more tires would be used, more pollutants would be put into the atmosphere, roads would wear out sooner, etc. If the same number of miles were driven and $500.00 were saved, what could the owner of the car do with the $500.00 saved? The car owner could either save the money and put it into the bank or spend the money. (Again, a combination of saving some of the money and spending some of the money doesn’t change the points set forth below.) If the car owner spent the money by buying something, say a few additional shirts, that purchase would increase the usage of resources—grow more cotton or make more artificial fabric to make the shirts, build a factory to make them. buy sewing machines, use electric to run the sewing machines, transportation to transfer the shirts from the factory to the store, etc. If the car owner saved the $500.00 and put it into the bank, the bank would lend that money out. The bank could not keep that money for an extended period of time without lending it out to earn money and pay the depositor interest. The bank would lower the interest rate it charged its customers until someone borrowed that $500.00. The borrower would not borrow that money to put it under his mattress. The borrower would borrow that money to build something or expand his/her business. If the borrower used that money to build something or expand his/her business, that would expand the economy as a whole and would use more resources. The only way for resources to be saved would be for the owner of the car to flush the $500.00 saved down the toilet and the car owner is not going to do that. In simple terms and after considering all the choices, increasing the miles per gallon will not reduce the total amount of resources used by humanity and in fact will probably increase the total amount of resources used–drive some additional miles and spend some of the savings on new purchases which would expand the economy as a whole and thereby increase the usage of resources.

What I have described in the paragraph above is known as the “Jevons Paradox” (also known as the “Jevons Effect”) or something very similar, the “Khazzoom-Brookes Postulate”. ( Both of these items can be researched on the internet by the use of any research engine.) Increased energy efficiency tends to increase energy consumption by two means–a) Increased energy efficiency makes the use of energy relatively cheaper, thus encouraging increased use; and b) Increased energy efficiency leads to increased economic growth, which pulls up energy use for the whole economy. While in its original form the Jevons Paradox was limited to energy efficiency, the concept can be applied, as indicated above, to the increase in efficiency in any resource.

Let us now look at the addition jobs the economy of the USA and the entire world will have to provide by the year 2050. According to the best estimates the population of the USA will go from the current (2010) population of 308 to 430 million in 2050, an increase of 122 million. If we make the reasonable assumption that on average a family unit will consist of four people, there will be an increase of 30,500,000 family units. If we make the further assumption that each family unit will require, on average, 1 and 1/2 jobs, then 45,750, 000 jobs will have to be created in the USA between 2010 and 2050. The monthly average increase in jobs (40 years equals 480 months and 45,750,000 divided by 480 equals 95,312.5) which the economy of the USA will be required to produce is in excess of 95,000. Applying the same type of logic to the entire planet, the population is expected to increase by 2.4 billion from 6.8 to 9.2 billion; if we assume for the entire planet that on average a family unit will consist of five people, 480 million family units will be created during the period of 40 years from 2010 to 2050; and if we assume that only one job per family unit is required, then 480 million jobs will be necessary. This works out to one million jobs per month, on average, over the next 40 years will be required. While we can argue about the assumptions I made in this paragraph, I don’t believe that anyone can dispute that the assumptions are in the “reasonable’ range and the results I obtained are in the “ball park”.

If either the USA or the entire world’s economy cannot provide the number of jobs set forth in the previous paragraph (and they must be jobs that permit a family to survive and provide a certain standard of living), then substantial social unrest will occur. The number of jobs provided will determine the level of social unrest or if the social order is destroyed. The question becomes how many jobs can the USA and the entire world’s economy provide over the next 480 months? I personally do not feel optimistic, but I leave the answer to that question to the economists. However, to date, I have not read anything written by a reputable economist that the required number of jobs can be produced nor have I read anything that the earth can provide the resources necessary for that number of new jobs. The US election of November 2, 2010 showed the social unrest unemployment can cause.

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Quotidian Acumen

Talking to a transformed liberal that now erroneously defines himself as a mainstream conservative is kind of like being between a rock and a hard place. What is one to do, chip away at the rock or piss on the hard place?